February, 16 2018 Belton, Tx- Kelley Honey Farms attended the Mother Earth News Fair, a sustainable living convention open to the public. We saw everything from making your own coconut milk ice cream to composting toilets.

Sustainable living and bee keeping go hand in hand, being able to produce your own non perishable food while simultaneously increasing crop yield through pollination is a must for anyone trying to be truly self sustaining. Kelley’s has come up with a way to help sustainability enthusiasts establish their own hive by becoming hive sponsors.

The Kelley Honey Farms Sponsor a Hive program allows anyone with a backyard to get their own hive and learn how to keep it alive. Learn more about getting your own hive through our program, and start making your own honey here.

To learn more about Mother Earth News, and sustainable living visit the Mother Earth News website here.

First Watch This

Now Let’s Talk About Space Bees

Space Bees are a thing…or were a thing in 1984, when a small 3400 bee hive with a queen was introduced into a specially made module and launched into orbit where the colony was able to produce comb, store honey and produce eggs during a week long orbiting phase where they were also able to adapt to micro-gravity flight. This is a far cry from the 3-7 month journey they would need to make to get to a colony on Mars, but if we can overcome these challenges, small Honeybee colonies would be a much appreciated tool in the green houses needed to feed the estimated million person population needed to develop a self sustaining Martian city. Needless to say a bottle of Martian honey will be pretty expensive for your great grandchildren.

If You Can’t Stand The Heat, Get Out The Honey

Recently Kelley Honey Farms attended the spicy food festival, Zest Fest 2018, in Irving, TX. There they debuted their new honey flavors cinnamon and jalapeno with the first public tasting with much success. They also helped cool a few hot mouths with one of the amazing properties of honey. Strategically placed right next to the PuckerButt Pepper Company ,Guinness World Record holders for the worlds hottest pepper, Smokin’ Ed’s Carolina Reaper®. It was the sadistic samples at this booth of pain that sent people running to the nearest bastion of hope, the Kelley Honey Farms’ sampling station. There they could put out the fire with honey samples and regroup before continuing on their noble journey through Dante’s kitchen.

Zest Fest 2018, a gauntlet of delicious pain

How Does Honey Help?

Just one tablespoon of honey is enough to put out the fire from most really spicy foods, that’s because the sugars in honey help dilute the heat causing compounds found in peppers, how much you need depends on how much spice you’re trying to dissipate. You may notice that “spicy” honeys don’t tend to taste as spicy as the peppers that they are infused with, that’s the sugars taming down the pungency allowing you to taste more of the flavor of the pepper without overwhelming heat. This is surprising to many, but in fact we’ve known about the ability of sugar to fight heat for a while. The Scoville scale that we use to measure the heat in peppers was devised way back in 1912 and involved diluting a pepper’s extract with sugar water until no heat could be detected. When we dilute spicy sensations with honey we are essentially doing the same, except it tastes better.

Bee hives are incredible examples of social organisms. At their best, they are efficient communities producing food, brood, and infrastructure for 50,000 or so individuals. In fact they are so efficient that they can outgrow their hive quickly. When a hive is out of space about 60% of the bees including the queen will swarm, leaving behind their original hive in search of a suitable place to start another.

Before swarming the queen will lay eggs in special brood cells called “Queen Cups”, this ensures a new queen for the bees left out of the swarm. Around the same time worker bees will begin to cut back on the queen’s feeding in order to trim her down for the impending flight with the swarm.

When the swarm leaves the hive they will find a temporary resting place while scouts look for a suitable place to settle down. As the swarm begins building their new home, the original hive cares for the developing queens. Eventually the first queen will hatch, find the unhatched queens and kill them before they hatch. After disposing of her potential rivals the queen will take on her new role with the hive, replacing the departed queen and laying eggs to replace the workers lost in the swarm.

At the end of all this we end up with 2 healthy hives…which means double the honey!

It’s Turkey Time!

What’s better than a freshly baked juicy turkey?… A juicy turkey with a sweet, savory, crunchy kick! For this Thanksgiving we’re pulling out all the stops in a one of a kind tasty turkey treat. This is one dish that your guests won’t want to put down!

What’s better than combining sweet potatoes and marshmallows into a casserole? Making it with raw & natural honey of course! Bring a little sweetness in your life with Kelley’s take on a Thanksgiving favorite: Sweet Potato Casserole

Ingredients:

½ cup Kelly’s Texas Country Style Honey

¼ cup Heavy Cream

⅓ cup Light Brown Sugar

3 Medium Sweet Potatoes

¼ tsp nutmeg

2 Tbsp Butter

¼ tsp salt

1 bag marshmallows

Directions

Slice & Quarter Sweet Potatoes

Boil covered for 10-15 minutes or until tender

Preheat oven to 375℉

Mash sweet potatoes until smooth

Drain water and add:

Nutmeg

Salt

Butter

Heavy Cream

Brown Sugar

Honey

Spread mashed mixture in 8×8 baking dish coated with cooking spray

Evenly spread the marshmallows on top of mixture

Bake in oven at 375℉ for 25 minutes

Let cool for 10 minutes

Enjoy!

When adding in nutmeg and butter, feel free to spice your casserole up with some vanilla, cinnamon,or a little pumpkin spice.

A sweet and savory flavor of both bacon and Kelley’s honey explodes with each bite into these crispy and tender brussels sprouts. So simple that it makes a tasty side dish at any Thanksgiving dinner table.

Ingredients:

2 lb – Brussels Sprouts

3 – Stripes of Bacon

3 tsp – Olive Oil

2 tbsp – Kelley’ Texas Country Style Honey

Salt

Pepper

Directions:

Pre-heat oven at 400 degree Fahrenheit

Cut brussels sprouts into halves and lay out onto baking sheet

Cut bacon strips into small pieces and place on top of brussels sprouts

Whether it’s made for Thanksgiving dinner or with the leftover from the night before, Kelley’s Kitchen presents a favorite classic dish: sweet potato hash with ham and honey topped with an egg. This recipe brings together the savory flavors of ham and bacon, and the sweetness of sweet potatoes and Kelley’s honey. Add in some jalapenos for a southwestern kick.

Serving Size: 4

Ingredients:

2 – Sweet potatoes

1/2 lbs – Maple ham

1 slice – Bacon

1 or 2 – Bundles of green onions

1 or 2 – Jalapenos (optional)

2 tbs – Kelley’s Texas Country Style Honey

4 – Eggs

2 tbs – Olive oil

Directions:
1) Wash, peel and dice sweet potatoes into small cubes
2) Dice ham and bacon into small chunks
3) Dice green onions and jalapenos
4) Coat skillet with olive oil and heat to medium-high
5) Saute honey, sweet potato and the other vegetables for 10-12 minutes
6) Saute the meat into the vegetables until bacon and sweet potatoes are fully cooked
7) Crack 4 eggs on top of the hash and cover with a lid until fully cooked
8) Plate and enjoy!

Do you know how bees fly?

If you don’t, you shouldn’t feel bad, it’s a question that has puzzled scientists for years.

In fact until recently it was a mystery, but in 2006 researchers at the California Institute of Technology and the University of Nevada performed a series of experiments with high-speed cameras, live honeybees, and robotic honeybee wings that helped explain this phenomenon.

It turns out that honeybees use a unique approach to beat gravity.

Usually flying insects follow a pattern; smaller insects have smaller wings and ‘flap’ them at a higher frequency to stay aloft; larger insects tend to have larger, longer wings that they ‘flap’ at a lower frequency. Most flying insects use a large wing stroke amplitude (a angle measurement of how far the wing will move around their body during a full wing stroke). Honeybees get their lift from high frequency, low amplitude wing strokes.

They found that an unloaded bee would generally only move it’s wings at ~90º and ~230 Hz. When the bee flew in simulated load conditions, they found that the frequency stayed the same and the amplitude increased to ~130º. The robotic bee wing was programmed to mimic the wing movements of a hovering bee. When tested, the results were similar to the live bee data. It confirmed the assumption that the constant frequency wing strokes with a higher amplitude yields a wider range power output and a increased peak output on the same wing compared to having a fixed wingtip speed with variable frequencies and amplitudes.

This is important, since most flies use the second method of low frequency and high amplitude in their wing strokes. The interesting part is that the quasi-steady model developed from fruit fly wing simulations for the bee’s wing doesn’t match up with empirical data from the bee wing model. The quasi-steady force estimate predicted low forces at the beginning and end of the wing stroke. The measured forces showed unexpected peaks. Although less efficient than the fruit fly, the higher frequency and variable amplitude model allows bees to adapt to heavier flight loads (pollen, nectar, water, etc..) by having a larger range of force output, and a higher proportional peak wing force. This characteristic makes bees one of the most unique flying insects on this planet.

Wondering what you can use that super healthy bee pollen for? You can sprinkle it in smoothies, yogurt, oatmeal, and cereal, or step it up a notch and try this delicious ice cream recipe! ... See MoreSee Less

Spring is approaching and it is a good time to start preparing your garden! Come check us out this weekend at the Texas Home and Garden Show in Dallas to learn more about importance of bees in your garden. We will also be talking about bee hive sponsorship whether in your back yard or ours. Stop by at booth #429, we will be here Friday - Sunday (3/2-3/4).

It's time to #ThinkSpring, Dallas! The Texas Home & Garden Show is coming to Dallas Market Hall March 2-4, 2018. Come out and join us! We'll have seminars from best-selling author Kristina Leigh Wiggi...